Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Happy Labor Day to Me! - Our Spring Update

Today is my due date, and I am still...here - as in, not at the hospital.  But regardless of how excited and anxious we are to meet this little man, he'll come when he comes and he'll be worth the wait, I am sure. 

However, it may be a good thing he's taking his time, so I can 'catch up' (what a loose term) on my blog.

This has been a weird spring for Iowa.  It has been cold until May, which made our visits to sunny LV and Kansas even better, but strange nonetheless.  It was sad to come home and realize it was still winter here.  And then it rained, a lot.  I didn't really realize how long it is to be indoors for an extended winter until you have an active toddler who thrives on sunshine.

It was great to see both of our parents!  Las Vegas was, as always, full of some of our favorite people, great weather, and lots of love.  We are always surprised at how quickly the time goes, but nice to know we'll be seeing them again soon when #2 decides to make an appearance. 

We spent Easter in Kansas and it was so much fun to see Little Man hunt eggs.  Once he got the hang of it he was all over it!  It's always hard to leave but so nice to be so close!

Happily, J finished with one of his worst rotations of the program and we are SO glad.  The getting up at 3:30am and getting home at 6-7 with going to bed at 8:00 six days a weeks was tough.  It made the 'we never see him' phrase take on a whole new meaning.  The people that actually work that department and those hours have my full appreciation and respect!  So now that he is back on a normal schedule of 7ish-6ish sprinkled with a  few days of call, we are feeling good about Daddy time.  Especially since Little Man has been doing things like getting up before 6, meaning he gets to see Daddy sometimes in the morning and at night -

My wonderful parents got to come up for Mother's Day and listen to my community orchestra concert.  I felt like a kid again - in a good way - having my parents come to my recital and it was so much fun to have them here. 

So there you have it - our spring in a nutshell!  Hopefully the next post will be announcing a perfect baby who has decided to sleep all night long within a week of being home from the hospital =)  But if that is not the case, I am sure he will be wonderful.

Some pictures of our adventures:

 Happy to be with Grandma in the sun!

 Like any good grandson, we did vehicle inspection to make sure Grandpa's truck was working well
 Found a friend at the zoo- he was just a few months older than Little Man and they started at each other for quite a while - it was super cute.
 Heading to the buffalos with Grandma - we loved the zoo!
 

 When he's not riding Little Man prefers to help me push the stroller which is so fun for both of us!  Yes, I am seven months pregnant here.  It kind of shocked me to see this picture - you forget sometimes how you look from that angle...
 Just taking it all in...
 Flamingos of course!
 I love his face in this picture - it pretty much defines his entire zoo experience - he loved the animals but it was a little bit of a shock to see them up close and personal.
 The construction behind our house was heaven for this true boy!  We went over and sat on the tractor pretty often until it left =(  It was and sometimes still is the first thing he asks for in the morning since we could see it from his window.  He LOVES tractors, diggers, cars - things that move...
 When they first started he would stand out on our deck for 20 minutes by himself just watching the diggers.  It was so fun to see how excited he was.
 Easter with his best cousin, Jack, only a six months younger.  As you can see, James's feelings of waiting for his food are clear...
 Did we mention it has rained a LOT?  This is the field behind our house.  There is a creek that runs to the left of our building and it overflowed, obviously.  I think we got 8 inches in 24 hours or something to that effect. Oh my.  Yes, we were flooded in half the day since it is not a through street, but amazingly, everything was clear by the time J came home. 
 This poor person tried to keep going and got stuck.
And yes, we finally got our garden in!  This is Little Man checking on our seedlings we started.  They were so beautiful!  Until they got blown off the porch by our monster strong winds here and fell two stories.  There were no tomato survivors =(  Maybe next year.  In the meantime, we bought some at the store - twice - since the late frost got some and animals got others.  It's been a rough go.  I think we're finally on our way, if only the sun will start to shine more.